Reality television

Let’s get this obvious example out of the way.

Trump seamlessly carried his brash persona from his
reality series The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice to the
campaign trail. Rather than the show’s contestants being
hit with unexpected challenges, the election’s participants
navigated an ever-evolving series of issues—from Clinton’s
multiple email fiascos to Trump’s refusal to release his
tax returns and his heated exchanges with the parents of a
fallen U.S. soldier.

Kathryn Cramer Brownell, an assistant professor of
history who studies the relationships between media,
politics, and popular culture, says it may be surprising to
some that Trump ran his campaign like an over-the-top
reality show. He did well on that wave, and he likely saw no
reason to get off, explains Brownell, the author of Showbiz
Politics: Hollywood in American Political Life, which
chronicles the institutionalization of Hollywood styles and
structures in American politics. “He knows what sells with
audiences, and he has honed his brand over the past two
decades,” she says.

Benjamin Baker, a senior in political science who
worked for C-SPAN during the Republican National
Convention and blogged about the experience, says the
election season reminded him of a Real Housewives series.
“The stepmother and the cool uncle [Clinton and Sanders]
are fighting over the family inheritance. The stepmother is
winning, and no one is happy,” Baker says. “But in the end
she will get it, because that’s the way the will was written.”

On the Republican side, Baker observed how scripted
the drama could be at the RNC, with delegations walking
out and Trump pushing boundaries on the things he’s
willing to say for drama and attention. “That’s exactly how
I saw Trump treating this whole election,” Baker says. “He
does or says something infuriating, and then he moves on
or backtracks. The drama was fake because he wants to get
people to watch.”

Infomercial

Compared to traditional commercials, infomercials cost
almost nothing to produce. In 2013, the average cost to
produce a national commercial was $12,000 per second,
compared to an infomercial, which often comes in at less
than $14 per second.

And that doesn’t count the cost of getting the spot onthe air. National commercials can cost millions to sandwich